Electrical enclosures are widely-used to house electrical components, such as switches. A typical electrical enclosure is a steel structure that includes a base structure and a removable structure, such as a door or cover. The base structure and removable structure are generally secured together in order to form the enclosure that houses the electrical components. One important characteristic of an electrical enclosure is its ability to effectively electromagnetically shield the enclosed components. Another important feature is the enclosures ability to seal the housed electrical components from external conditions, such as dust, rain, snow, ice, etc.
In conventional electrical enclosures, the electrical enclosure is sealed and electromagnetically shielded using a preformed rubber gasket/wire mesh assembly (hereinafter preformed gasket/mesh assembly). A cross section of a conventional enclosure employing a preformed gasket/mesh assembly is shown in FIG. 1. The enclosure generally designated 10 includes a base structure 12 (shown in phantom) and a cover 14. A preformed gasket/mesh assembly 16 is disposed against an outer lip 18 of the cover 14. Typically the gasket/mesh assembly 16 runs adjacent the outer lip 18 about the entire perimeter of the cover 14. The preformed gasket/mesh assembly 16 typically includes a rubber gasket 16a bonded to a wire mesh 16b. The wire mesh 16b typically has a height “h” which is equal to or greater than the height of the rubber gasket 16a. In manufacturing the enclosure 10, an adhesive 20 is typically applied to the bottom of the rubber gasket 16a and the preformed gasket/mesh assembly 16 is laid down by hand against the outer lip 18 of the cover 14.
Conventional electrical enclosures such as those exemplified by FIG. 1 are typically associated with a number of shortcomings. For example, these conventional electrical enclosures often fail to adequately seal the enclosed electrical components under more harsh weather conditions. In addition, the assembling of conventional electrical enclosures is typically expensive. Much of the high cost stems from the labor intensive manufacturing process used to adhere the preformed gasket/mesh assembly to the electrical enclosure. The present invention addresses these problems and others associated with shielding and sealing of electrical enclosures.